What Are You Looking At? How We View our Lost Friends and Neighbors

How do we view our lost friends and neighbors as Jesus does?

In episode 33, we dug into the idea of identity. We talked about who we are, if we are in Christ, as defined by scripture. We hinted at how that identity might shape how we view others. Today, I’d like to go a little deeper into just how being “in Christ” and knowing how He sees the world shapes how we view those who don’t yet know Him. In future episodes, we will also look at how we view our “family” of fellow believers, and circle back to how that affects this relationship. But for today, let’s talk about our friends, family, and others in our lives who are not Christians.

Scripture has several names for those who are not saved: they’re called neighbors, unrighteous, unredeemed, “all men,” and possibly, enemies. For our definition, we’re talking about those who have not believed and professed belief in Christ, repenting of sin, accepting His gift of redemption, and coming to a saving knowledge of Him.

Statistically speaking, for most of us, the majority of people we know should/could be unbelievers, because there are likely far more people in the world who have not placed trusting faith in Christ. The honest truth is many of us may primarily be in the company of other Christians, and that might be a state we should challenge for ourselves… we are called to love “the brotherhood” in an intentional way, and we are also called to pursue gospel-driven relationships with those who are not yet in Christ. 

Here’s the thing: we’re exhorted in scripture to “go into all the world” with the message of the gospel, so we should be looking at the people in our everyday lives as those who need to hear that message. We need to be actively asking the Lord how he views those people, and allowing it to shape how we look at them and how we treat them!

We need to see our unsaved friends and neighbors through the lens of God. For an idea of how God sees those I think of as “not yet in Christ,” we can look at how He has treated us.

• God is patient with the lost. 2 Peter 3:9 reminds us, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
• God wants the lost to be saved. In 1 Timothy 2:1-4 Paul tells Timothy, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (See also Galatians 6:10.)

So, knowing that God wants to see the lost saved, and knowing He has commanded us to tell them about Him, how do we approach those in our lives who don’t know Him?

We pray for them.

Matthew 5:43 says to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute  you.”

God shows mercy toward sinners, and in Paul’s words, we are chief among them. So we need to go to Him on behalf of those we know who are lost in their sin. Earlier we read from 1 Timothy, Paul’s urging to pray for “all men,” that they might be saved.

2 Timothy 2:26 tells us to avoid being quarrelsome because “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” So we can pray for Him to do just that – to capture their hearts and raise them to spiritual life! We can pray that they will see Him for who He is, submit to Him to be saved, and come to know freedom in lives yielded to Him!

One writer challenges us to pray for them by name, and this hit home for me. Rick Segal says, “Most of us do know personally at least dozens, some of us hundreds, and rather than lump these precious individuals into one big prayer cohort, we could begin to take their given names before God in prayer. Start writing their names down and praying over them at least once a week.” (source)

We love them (we actually care about them).

Matthew 5’s command also tells us to actually love even our enemies. We have to see them as humans, made in God’s image, in whose lives He may actually use us to show His saving love. This means we have to make time to build relationships, intentionally, with the aim of modeling His character, speaking the truth about this world and our desperate need for Him as we go.

Rick Segal says, “If we don’t make unbelieving people a priority, we’ll always gravitate toward the comfort of Christian cul-de-sacs.” (source)

Philippians 2:15: tells us that “We ‘shine’ so that a lost world might see God’s glory and through Christ, move from death to life!”

Genuinely caring about people means that we point them to Jesus with our words and our actions; we must look for ways to articulate the hope of the gospel, even in our own struggles.

In Matthew 11 and Luke 7, Jesus is called a “friend to sinners,” a phrase meant to criticize Him for spending time with lost people and those of questionable character. He responds to this criticism, “Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds,” to this seemingly snarky comment. In other words, YES, Jesus spent time with those the religious elite disdained, but He did so with the express purpose of showing them the way of salvation. 

We can’t be confused: Jesus wasn’t gallivanting with them, living their errant lifestyle alongside them. In fact, throughout Jesus’ walk on earth, the idea of sin and repentance is very closely connected to His purposeful relationship-building, for the sake of the gospel. In Matthew, Jesus calls out the “unrepentant” who saw His miracles and did not confess and receive the gift of salvation He offers. In Luke, we read the story of the sinful woman washing Jesus’ feet, with His teaching about forgiveness of sin and resulting gratefulness. This takes place in a home, incidentally, where this woman is somehow a guest. It’s as if we are meant to see that the hospitality Jesus practiced, through His love for the lost, was for the purpose of repentance and salvation.

“Jesus loved sinners too much to enjoy what they enjoyed.” – John Piper (source)

“…from the little we can see, it is highly unlikely that Jesus would have simply listened and said nothing about the ways of the kingdom. He would have acted like a physician.‘ I see some disease here and I know a remedy.’ And he points them to the ways of the kingdom.” – John Piper (source)

Look at Matthew 5:43 again – even when our “neighbors” are difficult, we are called to love and pray for our enemies!

We invite (or say yes to invitations).

Voddie Baucham says, “Biblical love is an act of the will, accompanied by emotion, that leads to action on behalf of its subject.”  (source)

We have to intentionally pursue relationship-building interactions with our lost neighbors. This might mean we invite them to dinner, host an in-home weekly prayer coffee, or say yes to invitations to birthday parties. Sometimes saying “yes” to another’s invitation is the best way to say that yes, we actually want to be involved in their lives.

““Let God use your home, apartment, dorm room, front yard, community gymnasium, or garden for the purpose of making strangers into neighbors and neighbors into family. Because that is the point—building the church and living like a family, the family of God,” says Rosaria Butterfield in The Gospel Comes With A House Key. Whatever season we are in, whatever God has given us, we can use it for an opportunity to reach out to those around us with the love of God!

We speak truth.

2 Corinthians 5:11 says, “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.” This implies (although we know that yes, the Holy Spirit is the One who does the life-saving work) that we must actually say the words that articulate the truths of God for all men.

There’s a quote that often gets misused from St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.” Some people use this as an excuse to avoid the uncomfortable work of talking about the message of salvation. Let’s be honest: it’s HARD to start that conversation. And yet, God tells us to do it. Romans 10:14 tells us boldly that the lost need to be TOLD they need a savior. Sometimes that means our words will challenge the thoughts of the day, and sometimes it might not feel controversial at all, but we must speak the story of God’s saving love to those in our lives who don’t know Him. That means we should pretty much always have the thought running through our brains, “How can I model Jesus and the story of God here, in this moment?”

Speaking the truth is driven by our love for God and our love for those He is calling, so it will shape the nature of our relationship with unbelievers. “We are called to evangelize the lost, not be intimate with them. There is nothing wrong with building quality friendships with unbelievers – but the primary focus of such a relationship should be to win them to Christ by sharing the Gospel with them and demonstrating God’s saving power in our own lives.” – Got Questions (source)

And this truth is for us from God Questions: “Clearly, the biblical method of evangelism is the faithful proclamation of the truth of Scripture in conjunction with the living testimony of those who have been changed by that truth. When Jesus went about teaching the gospel message of salvation, He taught love and forgiveness, being kind and compassionate. But He went to sinners in order to convict them of their sins. A case in point is the very Samaritan woman we’ve been talking about here. Remember . . . the very first word Jesus said when He began His ministry was “Repent!” “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near’” (Matthew 4:17). We are commissioned to bring that same message to the world, speaking the truth in love from a heart changed by the Savior.”  (source) This is a GREAT article with many more biblical references that help us connect what our relationships should look like from a “kingdom mindset.” (See also Jeremiah 23:29 and Ephesians 4:25.)

Take a minute and read John 4!! In this story of the woman at the well, there’s a compelling note: God used the truth about her sin to persuade her family and friends!

What else do we do to look at unbelievers through the lens of God?

We do our homework.

Hebrews 4:12 gives us comfort and also challenges us when it reminds us that God’s word does the work of changing hearts.This simultaneously means we don’t bear the burden of changing hearts and minds, and that we need to work to KNOW the word so we can share it!

1 Peter 3:15 is clear: we need to honor Christ always, and prepare ourselves to speak the truths of scripture as the source of our hope, to “anyone who asks!” I’d challenge you and me that sometimes, a person doesn’t even consciously “ask” for the truth – but their lives and their challenges are asking, and God has placed us in their lives to answer.

So here’s where the homework comes in: if you and I don’t have the Word rolling off of our tongues, we need to spend more time in it. If we don’t have a ready story of how God has saved us, challenged us, blessed us, convicted us, transformed us, then we need to spend more time thinking about it and preparing to tell it! This, in biblical terms, means we need to be increasingly growing as disciples of Jesus so that we can “go and make disciples” in our relationships.

“Evangelism is more than merely convincing people of the rightness of Christianity or getting them to walk an aisle and pray a prayer. Evangelism is about making disciples—calling people away from the kingdom of man and into the kingdom of God. This transfer of allegiance is at the heart of expository apologetics.” (From Voddie Baucham, where he makes a powerful case for why we need to learn expository apologetics!)

You may need to read your Bible more. You may need to study apologetics. You may need to read some sources on how to share the gospel – but the bottom line is, we all have homework to do to genuinely love our “neighbor” as God has called us to!

We get over ourselves.

In episode 33 we talked about who we are as defined by God. If you haven’t listened to it, it’s a good idea to go take some notes. One thing we covered is letting God define who we are, over and above anything we’ve been told about ourselves. Sometimes it’s our pride (we don’t want to be embarrassed if it’s uncomfortable), sometimes it’s misplaced “concern” (we don’t want to make someone offended at the gospel), and sometimes it’s that we’ve believed that our strengths, weaknesses, or personality traits limit us in sharing the gospel.

“When we are surrounded by non-Christians who do not worship God or hold to our values, it is tempting to remain silent or compromise Scripture in order not to offend.” – Got Questions (source)

But God’s word tells us the gospel is offensive to the lost; it isn’t our duty to make it more palatable. We have to trust that God will do the work of changing hearts and minds, and we have to trust that He will do any protecting we need in the process. And we cannot let ourselves be limited by what we have believed about ourselves – He has shaped us and He has called us, and it is only to us to obey what He tells us He will equip us to do!

We seek to help.

One way we can gain the ear of our lost friends and family members is to look for ways to genuinely do good for them. “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up,” says Paul. “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (See Galatians 6:9-10 and Jude 1:22–23.)

We use wisdom and hold ground.

2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 and following, also caution us that we aren’t to form inappropriate partnerships with the lost. God calls us to be “set apart,” Paul says, and reminds us that we do not have true fellowship with the unbeliever. So we have to be careful how we form relationships, and always be mindful of our calling to live holy lives.

1 Peter 2:17 tells us to live as servants of God and not use our freedom as an excuse for evil behavior – to “honor everyone.” So we honor our neighbors, even as we obey God’s commands for how we live our lives.

Earlier I mentioned saying yes to invitations to things like birthday parties – but it’s also important to have healthy boundaries. Some things we’ve done in the past to help with this are to make sure to leave before a neighborhood gathering was out of our comfort zone, to use as much wisdom as we could to send our kiddos into situations we wouldn’t have control over. Sometimes it means having a comfort level with their age and ability and the atmosphere they’d be in, and always, it involves being intentional to seek discernment from God in each season.

John Piper offers two really effective questions to ask ourselves as we seek to view our lost friends and neighbors as Jesus does, and also hold wise boundaries:

“Which way is the transforming influence flowing? When you are with someone, are they being transformed, or are you being transformed? Are you being drawn to minimize the value of holiness? Have your standards been compromised? Are you being made callous and hard toward things in, say, movies or on television or in language that you weren’t once hard to, but sensitive to? That is the first question… And the second question is, Are we loving these people for their sake — that is, that they would come to faith and they would become godly — or do we really love them because we love what they enjoy and really just like being with them in their worldliness?” – Pastor John Piper (source)

And Rosaria Butterfield reminds us: “Jesus dined with sinners, but he didn’t sin with sinners. Jesus lived in the world, but he didn’t live like the world. This is the Jesus paradox.” –  The Gospel Comes With A House Key

Mark 5:19-20, a familiar passage, reminds us that we are the salt of the earth, and we are no good if we lose our saltiness!

“We can participate in activities and relationships with unbelievers, but only to a point. We must be ready to say a polite, “No, thank you,” when asked to step outside our purpose. It may not be outright sin we are encouraged to pursue, but many other things can lure us away from pure devotion to Christ.” – Got Questions (source)

Ultimately, it is an incredible privilege to be used of God in someone’s journey toward salvation. We don’t know who He is calling and when He will call them to life from death. But we do know that He has called us to pursue conversations, relationships, and people, with His view of the lost. We do know that He has commanded us to share the hope of the gospel that we have, because we were called by Him ourselves. And as we lean into the next episode where we’ll talk about our relationships with fellow believers, it’s good to remember: “Yes, we rejoice in corporate worship, in Christian fellowship, and in private devotion. But we must not neglect the essential work and untapped joy of sharing Christ with those who do not yet know him.” – Rick Segal (source)

Here’s our challenge: Will you and I make it a priority to view our lost friends and neighbors as Jesus does? Will we commit to pray for them by name, that He might save them? Will we commit to do uncomfortable things if it means we might be used by Him to show them the hope of His glory?

Related episodes:

Hard Hospitality: Responding to “Pride” With Humility (episode 4)

How Do You Identify? (episode 33)

Ask Good Questions – Invite Genuine Community (episode 20)

Refine Your Focus: Pursue Community in Truth and Love (episode 21)

The Gift of Desperation and Community with Kera Freeman (episode 19)

When We Feel Afraid, But God is Bigger with Kim Russo (episode 7)

Resources:

• An excellent article on evangelism with friends and family
• The Gospel Comes With A House Key (Rosaria Butterfield)
• Before You Share Your Faith
• How Do I Lead Someone to Christ?
• Humbly Handling the Offense of the Gospel from Desiring God

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